IPL 3 Story Time
October 14th, 2011 § 36 Comments
Posting my IPL experience is long overdue but I’ve been enjoying my time back at home. I was pretty jet lagged when I got home and I am only now starting to get back to a normal sleeping schedule. Going to IPL was a great experience and I’m really happy I got to go there with Epik. This post is going to be long but I hope you guys enjoy what I have to say.
Joining Team Epik
About nine weeks ago I heard from Rinoa that Epik was looking for a new support member and she got me in contact with Westrice. He added me in game and asked if I was interested in playing support for their team. I told him I was down to play for them and I wanted to win. He thought that was cool and said he would try me out in scrims when he could get the team together. A week passed and every few days Westrice would say I was going to scrim with them but they kept using Curtoky instead of me. After a week of this I kind of thought that they had given up on trying to use me and was pretty disappointed.
I think I’ve said this before but I have been playing online games for more than 10 years and the first competitive game I got into was counterstrike 1.6. I remember I would join teams and compete in OGL or CAL but never really get anywhere important in those leagues. I would have fun scrimming every night with whatever team I was on and I did this for about 4 years before I started to get too busy to commit time to scrim 3 or 4 times a night. During this time, I remember I would read and watch videos of pro teams like EG, coL, NiP, and SK on GotFrag and think about how cool it would be to be a pro and travel while playing games. I was also about 14 years old at this time (when I was playing the most) so I knew that becoming a professional cs 1.6 player probably wasn’t going to happen for me especially because of my age. I even couldn’t go to some local LAN events because of my age and of course my parents didn’t want to take me or my computer to an event where I meet internet strangers…
I’m not sure of the exact date but Epik chose to use Curtoky for the IEM New York qualifier so I really thought I didn’t have a chance at joining them. I thought my chance to join them was over before I even got a tryout like Westrice was telling me. Then a few days after I thought I had no chance, Westrice asked me to duo with him and eventually got me into a scrim with the team and the atmosphere at the time felt a little weird. It felt like Dyrus and Dan really wanted to keep Curtoky because they asked him to play as support before they had known about me but were giving me a shot at scrimming because Westrice had told me I could tryout to be fair. I got a few scrims in against rjsdndgod’s team and I think once against Rez (v8) and we won them all that night. I remember my first impressions of those games were that Dyrus didn’t communicate much, Dan would over commit to ganks, Crumbzz wouldn’t ward middle, and Westrice/me would follow Dan into our deaths instead of backing out. Even with these small problems we were winning and I felt like we could improve by fixing these small mistakes.
After scrimming with the team for about two weeks the roster submission for IPL was coming. The same night the roster submission was due, Curtoky scrimmed with the team and then I scrimmed with the team. I remember Curtoky won in his scrim and I remember that I lost in my scrim. Goose did a global ultimate team comp and smashed us with Shen, Karthus, Caitlyn, Fiddle, and Soraka. It was really one sided and I really felt like I wasn’t going to get on Epik for IPL because Curtoky had won his scrim and I had gotten crushed in mine. After the scrims were over Crumbzz, Dan, Dyrus, and Westrice switched channels to talk about there choice for IPL. I’m not sure what they said in there but they ended up picking me to play as support for the team. I felt really bad and the vent channel was kind of awkward because they had to tell Curtoky that he wouldn’t be going to IPL :[ I still feel bad thinking about it now but I was also happy that they wanted to try to use me.
The atmosphere for the next few weeks leading up to IPL were different. It felt a lot better for me because I felt like they weren’t just giving me a courtesy tryout anymore and we were finally scrimming to get better as a team. We tried to get 2 or more scrims each night throughout the week and each game made us each more comfortable with each other. The only time a scrim night went a little sour was when we scrimmed against CLG 5 or 6 times in a row. You could really tell everyone wanted to win so we were getting snappy at each other but we all agreed that it was really good practice. I also want to clear up the perception that Epik doesn’t practice. Its not that we don’t practice, its just that it is difficult to get scrims with other teams because of our schedules but we do try to scrim as much as we can. If we aren’t scrimming we are all usually playing at least 5 solo queue games a day so that we are doing something. I know solo queue isn’t the greatest practice but its better than sitting and doing nothing.
Traveling to IPL
My flight to Philadelphia was at 9:30am on Friday (7th) and I got a ride to the airport from my brothers girlfriend at 6:30am. I packed a few hours before I left because I only needed 3 pairs of clothes and my mouse, mousepad, and keyboard. I also stayed up until 3:00am because I was fixing up my ipod for the trip. My first flight took me to San Jose and my second flight took me to Philadelphia. There was a couple hour delay before my flight to Philadelphia but it wasn’t that bad and I slept the whole way there. I got there around 11:45pm and met up with L0cust. I had gotten L0cust’s phone number a few nights before since his arrival was at the same time as me so that we could get a shuttle together to head over to Atlantic City where IPL was behind held. After getting my luggage we called a shuttle and ended up in the same shuttle as Classick and 2 other rioters. Not much to say about the ride since everyone was quiet but we got to Bally’s hotel where we were staying and competing around 1:00am. Since I was on west coast time it would have only been 10:00pm for me so I wasn’t that tired. I got to my room and met up with Westrice. We tried to get some food for me because I didn’t have dinner yet but most places were closed by then so we decided that I could just eat in the morning and I didn’t mind.
We met up with Dan and Dyrus who were in the lobby of the 6th floor the casino (this floor had the ballroom where we were playing the next day). The lobby had 8 computers set up that were free to play for visitors of the event but we all got on them to play a little bit of league. The free to play computers had extremely large monitors and it was really difficult to play league of them. Me and Westrice queued up together for solo queue and Dan queued at the same time. I remember Dan was on the other team and we were crushing his Rammus but our team went full derp and we lost. It was the most fraudulent win I’ve ever seen… Dan got carried hard ;[ After the game we decided it was time to go back to our rooms and sleep around 3:00am. Dyrus was rooming with Crumbzz, I was rooming with Westrice, and Dan was rooming with his brother.
IPL Day 3 (Day 1 for LoL)
I woke up around 8:00am took a shower and stuff and watched TV until Westrice woke up. Once he was up and ready to go, we went to check out the computer area where we were playing. We were hoping that they would be open to use but they were still being setup so we went to grab breakfast. I ate a turkey sub and Dan, Crumbzz, and Dyrus showed up to eat too. After breakfast we came back to the computer area and they let us play in an extra area on the side to warm up. It was about 9:30am and I thought our match was starting at 12:00pm but it was starting at 11:00am. Dan, Dyrus, and Crumbzz got into solo queue and ended up on the same team. I played a game of dominion and Westrice got into his own game in solo queue. I remember I won my dominion game in about 9 minutes so I was feeling pretty good for the day. Dan, Crumbzz, and Dyrus all got on the same team but ended up losing horribly (not a confidence booster lol…). Westrice’s game went on a little long and he had to leave it so that we could setup on the computers we would actually be playing on.
The place we played our games
Sorry if my illustration isn’t the greatest but we were playing on the left side of the room for day 1 against v8. The thin black rectangles are sets of 10 computers in a line. We were playing on the 5 computers on the top end (red circle is where we played our match against v8). We played our solo queue matches on the computers to the far right where there were 20 computers set up in the largest rectangle. The computers on the top of the image were used for starcraft 2 and the square in the middle had computers for IPL staff to update news.
The games against v8 went exactly how I had imaged them before even going to IPL. The 2 weeks leading up to IPL I was really studying everything that they were doing thanks to profiles and streamed scrims. We also scrimmed against v8 a few times before the tournament for practice and I don’t think we lost to them. We talked about our bans briefly before we played the games and all agreed that Kogmaw, Karthus, and Amumu would be the best bans to shut down their top picks. We also wanted to pick Nocturne and Caitlyn before they had a chance to grab them. In game 1, Dan died to wraiths… but we won a dragon fight 5-0 and got the dragon… the game was snowballed after that. In game 2, they invaded our jungle and Dyrus face checked a brush but got out with less than 100hp when v8 tried to tower dive him and we ended up getting first blood… the person who died was their jungler so we were in control from there. We also got Zilean for free both games… I don’t want to sound like I’m dissing on v8 too much but they need to play more champions if they want to become a better team.
My stats against v8
Anyways, we finished our games and we talked with the other teams that were there and getting ready for their games. I think TSM vs coL had started game 1 right as we were finishing our second game with v8. I talked with Imaqtpie and L0cust a little bit and joked with Imaqtpie that we would be in the finals together. After meeting up with the other teams, Crumbzz, Dan, and Westrice went with one group of people to lunch while Dyrus, and I went with most of v8 to lunch at the White House. The White House is supposed to be a famous place for their subs but I think everyone thought they were just alright. After we got back from lunch we watched the games inside the playing room. We had the choice of watching the casted games in a small theater room but I liked staying in the playing area to hear the teams talk to each other. I’m not sure who was playing when we got back but I talked with Imaqtpie and L0cust again before their match against Curse and they seemed pretty confident about playing. Dignitas went 2-0 against Curse but Curse could have taken game 2 if they didn’t go to baron.
After the games were done everyone just hung out in the playing area for awhile. The IPL and Riot staff told us when we were supposed to be in the playing area the next day. Chauster, Crumbzz, Dan, Dyrus, Elementz, Lapaka, Saintvicious, Westrice and I went out to dinner using the food coupons Riot gave us to use to buy food. Our bill at the end was about $480 and we paid it all using the food coupons and we left like a $60 tip. Some people made plans to go drink after that but me and Westrice went back to our room and fell asleep around 11:30pm… I was really tired and fell asleep while watching TV but woke up around 2:00am to brush my teeth and wash my face then went back to sleep again.
IPL Day 4 (Semi-finals and final)
I woke up around the same time again and went to the computer area on my own since I didn’t know when Westrice was going to wake up. Our match was at 3:00pm and we were supposed to get to the playing area at 2:00pm. When I got to the computer area I just checked my facebook, twitter, e-mail, reddit, and the league forums since I hadn’t checked them for 2 days and want to know what was going on in the world. After that I got back around 10:00am and Westrice finally woke up in the room. He got ready and we went down to get breakfast at the same place. We saw Chauster and Doublelift there so I got pizza with them and Westrice got a sub. After Westrice finished his food, he went to the playing area to check the internet and get ready. Chauster talked about changing the bottom lane meta and possibly switching to AP carry middle with Jiji going AD carry. Dyrus and Crumbzz showed up a little bit later and we all went to the playing area since Chauster had to get ready for his match against Dignitas at 12:00pm.
I met up with Imaqtpie and l0cust again and we joked about the final again before they played their match. Crumbzz, Dyrus, Lapaka, Westrice, and I went to the theater room to watch the cast of the first game. Its an interesting experience watching the casted game because Phreak and Rivington were on a stage but we only focused on the two projector screens while everything is going on. After the first game we went back to the playing area to set up our computers. This time we were playing on the computers on the right side (the top half of computers again) and our headsets had a problem with a static noise. It took the IPL staff awhile to fix it but they got it done 10 minutes before our match was going to be played. I’d like to thank the IPL staff for doing a great job at making the tournament run smoothly.
I don’t remember much about game 1 against TSM but they picked Yorick and Vayne and that ruined our day. They also put Vayne and Alistar up top against Dyrus’s Cho’gath and the game was kind of snowballed from there. Game 2 we picked Dan Dinger and game 3 we picked Dan Dinger with Soraka/Karthus bottom. Again, I don’t really remember what happened those games since every game had so much stuff happening. I remember Dyrus picked GP but didn’t know how to jungle him and he asked “WHERE DO I FIND A GUIDE TO PLAY GP???” and I said “Check Solomid.net” trollololol. I also remember he died to wolves… and I remember there was a time when I yelled at Westrice to back… everyone in the playing area got quiet because no one expected me to actually yell and drop an F bomb lol… I was pretty stressed out because everyone was going full derp that game and all 3 games were a really long grind :\
My stats against TSM
After the games were over we were pretty happy to win and shook hands with TSM. They all seemed pretty depressed after losing to us… and then we headed over to the theater to do our interview. We didn’t get an interview yesterday after our win because they didn’t stream our games that day. I thought the interview was pretty fun but I didn’t say much since I didn’t want to take the spotlight from any of the older members of the team (although I was the second oldest in age). They deserve it more than me since they’ve been working harder for longer but maybe in another interview I will talk a little more.
Immediately after the interview we went back to our computers to get ready for the final games. We had a 15 minute break before we had to start and we weren’t really talking about the picks and bans too much… Game 1 we picked Sion and Caitlyn and they banned our Heimerdinger. I only really remember that we were in the lead for a long time then dropped off mid game and had to win in the late game at the hour mark. Game 2 we could have gotten Caitlyn first pick but we picked Vayne… Our intentions of picking Vayne that game was that we could go Nunu/GP/Vayne to have super steroids on a powerful AD carry but we ended up geting Lee Sin to counter Akali which made us lose Nunu and also lose bottom lane because Vayne vs Caitlyn is a horrible match up. It is also partially my fault on the picks because I could have picked Alistar or Taric to support Vayne better than Janna… The game went fine for all lanes except bottom and they controlled every dragon for a slow 40 minute control push of death. Game 3… I messed up really badly (got caught trying to put down an extra greedy ward without paying attention or being protected with team) and went full derp after being 2-1-2 in game… I think you’ll understand from the stats…
My derp against Dignitas
After the game I felt really horrible… because I knew I messed up really bad for my team. The worst thing you can do as support is get caught because your the one trying to stop everyone else from getting caught. I know everyone on my team could have done something different to put us in the lead but I still made a really big mistake. I died two times before our match against Dignitas and died twelve times when I played against them… I know there are things I can improve on from that match. Before our interview after the final, Dyrus thanked me for playing well the whole tournament and that cheered me up a little bit but I still felt pretty bad. I think we all knew we could have won that last game but we all made our own small mistakes. The interview was fun again and I think it put everyone in a better mood. Congrats to Dignitas for taking 1st :p
After the interview, me and Westrice went back to the play area to get our stuff and check the internet for awhile then went to dinner. We met up with Dan, Dyrus, Phantomlord, Sumichu, Reginaid, TakashiX, Messiah, and Rivington. I don’t really remember what we ate but there was a lot of beer and Reginaid kindly paid for all of our dinners. Afterwards, me and Dyrus headed back to his room to drop his stuff off and we went to find the other guys for the ceremony at 12:00am… we switched from Bally’s to Caesars but didn’t find the ceremony… I’m not sure if they even had one. After we went back to Bally’s from Caesars we ended up at the Twitch.tv after party. Some people stayed and some people couldn’t get in because they weren’t 21… I’m not sure when but I went back to my room to sleep since I knew I had to wake up early to catch or a shuttle or taxi to the airport before 7:00am.
Traveling Back Home
I woke up around 4:00am got ready and packed and went to the front desk to find information about shuttles to the airport. I asked the desk lady for shuttle phone numbers and she gave me four of them. The first one didn’t work, the second one sold out of shuttles, and the third/fourth were the same company with two different numbers and they didn’t have any shuttles there either. This sucked because I knew getting a taxi from Atlantic City to Philadelphia would be really expensive, so I called Westrice to see what his plans were. He said he was going with Dan on a train and that their flights were 30 minutes later than mine and that the train should make it on time.
I met up with Reginaid, Phantomlord, Elementz, Saintvicious, Chauster, Lapaka, and Westrice as they were finishing their last meal before they were going to get ready to leave to the airport. All of those guys didn’t sleep yet :P Westrice and I went back to our room and got our luggage and headed down to Dan and Reginaid’s room to leave with them around 6:30am. We were pretty pressed on time to make it to the train station and had to get a cab to take us there after checking out since the train was leaving at about 7:00am. After we got out of the cab we rushed to the ticket booth and Dan bought all 4 tickets since we would have been late if we each bought them individually. Then we ran to the train doors as they are were about to close and made it on time. It turned out that we were on the same train cart as Phreak, Veigar, Classick, and the two other Rioters I met on the shuttle coming into Atlantic City. We got to the train station near the airport and took another train to the airport and got there around 8:30am. The other guys were flying on a different airline than me so I had to say bye to find the terminal I was supposed to be in.
It turns out the the flight I’m supposed to get on was delayed 30 minutes and that ruined my connector flight so that my travel plans got even more screwed up. My original travel plans were to leave at 9:45am to Chicago and get there around 10:50am then leave at 11:50am and get home by 3:50pm… My new plans turned out to be wait until 4:30pm to leave to Chicago and get there around 5:50pm and wait until 9:35pm and get home at 1:00am… So I just browsed the internet for 5 hours and ate food around the airport gates for 2 hours… not bad I guess. I slept the whole way to Chicago then slept 3 hours there and woke up to watch the Lions vs Browns game for an hour until I boarded the next plane. I slept on the plane until the last 30 minutes of the flight and talked to an old lady next to me about becoming a professional video game player. I got to my home airport around 11:50pm and got home around 1:00am to check the internet one last time, shower, and go to bed. That was my IPL experience.
I’m glad you got to join Epik for IPL but are you going to be on the team for other tournaments also?
im not sure yet
Thanks for posting this, It’s nice to know more about how tournaments are internally.
thx for reading :P
why did you never play sona and can you tell me your opinion on karma? :]
I want to play sona more but our team never mentions her so I just play something I normally do in scrims :P
Nhat you said this quote in your blog
“After the game I felt really horrible… because I knew I messed up really bad for my team. The worst thing you can do as support is get caught because your the one trying to stop everyone else from getting caught”.
I think you didn’t play badly in these games at all. I actually thought you did pretty much nothing wrong but you just ended up losing, obviously this could happen for a number of reasons including just bad luck. You definitely didn’t mess it up for your team like you say you did. You’re on of the best support players I have seen.
thx for your kind words :] Its just a bad feeling when you know how much winning means to your team (since they have come up short so many times in the past).
You seem like an awesome guy, im glad you got picked!
It was some really good games at IPL, and 2nd place is really good tbh :)
“and talked to an old lady next to me about becoming a professional video game player.” i lol’d xD
She was a nice lady :P she retired from teaching preschool and was coming back home after visiting relatives
Just wanted to thanks and congrats nhat.
First the thanks. Thanks for being a positive influence in the league of legends community. From all the various snippets that players talk about who goto tournements I get a huge vibe of mutual respect all around. A year ago, that kind of attitude was not nearly as apparent in the LoL community. So thank you, the rest of the high visibility competitive players, and all the involved community personnel (state of the league, wellplayed, etc.) on behalf of the rest of the community. Id hope
thx :] everyone that went to IPL was really cool. sometimes you get a perception of how someone is from watching a stream but that disappears when you actually get to know them
You were awesome =] It was fun meeting you and watching you play, from one support player to another.
the brotherhood of support players ;]
Sounds about right, cs 1.6 scrub to LoL pro.
jk jk
but not really
haha
So I was reading Scarra’s AMA and he mentions this about controlling creep waves as a support:
“You can auto attack enemies and position yourself after your creep wave leaves to control the positioning of the creep wave and how they arc.”
I think I understand what he says, but what’s the purpose / situation you would do this?
if the minion wave is pushing to your tower and your ad carry is away you can hold the minion by letting them attack you instead of walking to the tower. you can also assist your ad carry by helping him last hit at the tower (you hit minion > tower hits minion > ad carry last hits minion). or you can help push the lane to enemy tower or hold it neutral in the middle
Very good read Nhat. I am a huge fan of EG and I really hope that they keep you on because you are a great player. Thank you for the long post, it lets us live your dream with you.
thx for reading :]
The ‘Joining Team Epik’ section was a great read–I love getting behind-the-scenes peeks of how a pro team works/selects players.
Congrats on your 2nd place finish and hope you keep posting!
thx :]
good read, grats on the awesome team and hope you guys the best.
If youre doing some soloqueue support experimentation, try out roamers and AP shaco for instance. Youll be suprised at all the creative roaming support you can do with champs atm.
ANYWAY ye… hope you the best and hope youll stay in EG.
I used to roam in the past but now roaming means my ad carry gets zoned out or killed :[
the support i play with is really interested in roaming. We’ve made it work by copying clg going ad mid, kennen top, galio bot, lee sin jungle and taric roam. We want to switch kennen out for a different ap and the support player wants to try new roamers, any suggestions for fun roamers?
p.s. we’re only playing for fun but don’t wanna play something utterly gimped ofc
zilean and alistar are pretty nasty roamers
Wow that was amazing to read, i know thats what alot of people in the gaming world aspire to do, and you finaly got to do it! it must have been an amazing experience, and you gave us all a little taste of what it really is like, glad you made it dude.
thx:]
What are your thoughts on Leona or Blitzcrank in an aggressive bottom lane?
its fine if you aren’t playing a sustain/poke comp
hey nhat played great was good to watch please post more of these if u do get to go to other tournys i really enjoyed hearing what it was like, except your like my grandma because you just had to tell everyone what you and westrice ate LOL
lol
my penis is bigger then yours Nhat that is all!!!!!!!!! allso Nerf Irelia
Nhat, would you consider making a few comments on picking supports (possibly in a future guide)? Thanks in advance
i’ll make some when i feel like making them eventually
[...] I made a blog post about a competitive event and you can read about my last experience at IPL 3 here. This post will be very similar to that post a month ago but instead I will be writing about my [...]